Elisabeth Achelis (January 11, 1880 – February 11, 1973) was founder of the World Calendar Association in 1930 and served as its president.

Biography

Elisabeth Achelis was born in 1880 in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, the daughter of Frederick and Bertha Franziska Achelis. She had a twin sister Margaret, and attended

Brooklyn Heights Seminary The Brooklyn Heights Seminary was a private school in Brooklyn, New York. Early history The Brooklyn Heights Seminary was founded by Alonzo Gray in 1851. It was an offshoot of the Brooklyn Female Academy (est. 1845), which eventually became the ...

and the Ogontz School in Pennsylvania. She was an heir to the

American Hard Rubber Company American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

fortune. In 1929 she attended a lecture by

Melvil Dewey Melville Louis Kossuth "Melvil" Dewey (December 10, 1851 – December 26, 1931) was an influential American librarian and educator, inventor of the Dewey Decimal system of library classification, a founder of the Lake Placid Club, and a chief lib ...

at the

Lake Placid Club The Lake Placid Club was a social and recreation club founded 1895, in a hotel on Mirror Lake in Lake Placid, New York, under Melvil Dewey's leadership and according to his ideals. It was instrumental in Lake Placid's development as an internatio ...

on the idea of a thirteen month calendar. She was taken by the idea of calendar reform. Achelis founded The World Calendar Association (TWCA) in 1930 with the goal of worldwide adoption of the

World Calendar The World Calendar is a proposed reform of the Gregorian calendar created by Elisabeth Achelis of Brooklyn, New York in 1930. Features The World Calendar is a 12-month, perennial calendar with equal quarters. Each quarter begins on a Sunday a ...

. It functioned for most of the next twenty-five years as The World Calendar Association, Inc. Throughout the 1930s, support for the concept grew in the

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...

, the precursor of the United Nations. Achelis started the ''Journal of Calendar Reform'' in 1931, publishing it for twenty-five years, and wrote five books. Also, Achelis wrote in 1955, "While Affiliates and Committees have over the years and still are able to approach all branches of their governments, the Incorporated (International) Association was prevented from seeking legislation in the United States lest it lose its

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status. Because of this I have been prevented from doing in my own country that which I have been urging all other Affiliates to do in theirs."JCR Vol. 25, page 169 She died in her sleep at age 93 on February 11, 1973 in New York.

Works

* * * * * (Autobiography)

References

Activists from New York (state) 1880 births 1973 deaths {{US-activist-stub

Biography

Works

See also

References